By his own reckoning, DeLight E. Breidegam Jr. has been a very fortunate man.

But, with all due respect to the chairman of East Penn Manufacturing Co. Inc., good fortune alone could hardly explain the battery firm's steady, purposeful growth over a little more than six decades into one of the largest and most successful companies in its industry. Nor does luck alone explain how it prospered as many other battery makers both locally and industrywide fell by the wayside.

And crediting mere fortune would be to overlook the sharp intelligence and acute business instincts, bundled inside an unpretentious exterior, with which Breidegam has grown East Penn from nothing into a $1.4 billion powerhouse which is almost entirely owned by him and members of his family. Clearly, he's done it his way.

"We probably wouldn't be a model for the Harvard Business School," said Breidegam with his customary plainspokenness.

And further, such an industrial powerhouse - it has been the largest manufacturer in Berks County for years and the second largest employer for years - seemingly sprouting out of eastern Berks cornfields is an anomaly that can only be explained through the Fleetwood native's determination to keep his business local. (The firm has a small plant in Corydon, Iowa; a wire-and-cable facility in Kutztown and a distribution facility in Topton, but produces the vast majority of its goods at its sprawling main campus in Maxatawny and Richmond townships and Lyons.)

It seems clear that a great deal of Breidegam's entrepreneurial zeal was hard-wired genetically. He recalls his father, DeLight Sr., as being a man who never tired of trying one type of business or another: car upholstery at the legendary Fleetwood Auto Body works, running a grocery store in Lyons, raising poultry, dealing in antiques.

"You name it, we tried it," Breidegam, 81, recalled. "All the time I was in the service, he would write to me and say, 'We're going to go in this business; we're going to go in that business.' I thought he was out of his skull and a lot of other people thought he was, too."

Breidegam Sr. also was plant manager at Bowers Battery for a time. And when Breidegam returned to civilian life from his two-year stint in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1946, he found that his father's latest project involved rebuilding automotive batteries, for which demand was high due to wartime privations. He had rented a small building, previously a creamery, in Bowers for that purpose.

"A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into that place," Breidegam said.

Although he also had worked at Bowers Battery, Breidegam didn't know much about battery manufacturing. That know-how came from Karl Gasche, who had worked at Bowers Battery and had both a degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a farm in Breezy Corner.

Breidegam gives much of the credit for East Penn's early success to Gasche, and notes that the Deka battery brand name is an amalgam of their first names: DeLight and Karl.

The business was slow going at first. DeLight Sr.'s plan was that if they could make 100 batteries a day, they'd be a success.

Today, the firm makes up to 100,000 per day. The firm's sprawl over 500 acres in three municipalities is such that East Penn keeps guest houses on site for visitors who would be unable to take in the entire operation in a single day. In an almost permanent state of expansion, the company is constructing another building, Plant A4, which will provide another 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

"If my father could see what we're doing, he'd jump a hundred feet off the floor," Breidegam said. "He wouldn't believe it."

The move to its present site occurred in 1950: The firm acquired an 11-acre parcel in Richmond Township and constructed a small building there, about 35 by 100 feet.

The building, much expanded, is still in use as Building A1.

Breidegam said that in the early days, they'd drive around to gas stations and try to sell their product.

"You can't even get a battery at a gas station any more," he said. "They're busy selling potato chips and candy bars."

Growth, he said, came by plowing every dime the family could raise or make back into what he termed a very capital-intensive business and by being tough on waste.

At one time, battery companies thought nothing about despoiling their environs with toxins, but the industry has come full circle, and East Penn is proud of its efforts to contain waste.

"It was a cheap industry," he said. "And people thought that was normal, you know, the waste. Then in the '60s, the environmental stuff really started to come. Some people threw their hands up and said, 'There's no way.' And I always said, 'Well, ... damn it, we're going to try."

Most of what goes into an East Penn battery today is recycled and, in fact, the industry has evolved to the point that environmental stewardship is built into the economic model: It would be cost-ineffective to build a battery without recycling.

Also part of East Penn's economic model is never becoming overly dependent on any single customer.

"We still have a hell of a lot of small customers," he said in his distinctive Pennsylvania Dutch accent. "And that doesn't bother us. I don't care if a guy buys one battery or a truckload as long as I get paid."

Hand-in-hand with that customer diversity comes diversity in the product mix: At one time, East Penn made only automotive batteries. Today, its product mix includes backup-power, military, marine, motorcycle, industrial and cell-phone batteries.

Also diverse is East Penn's work force, and if Breidegam returns time and again to any one thing, it's the relationship of the people who work there to the company's success. Providing employment for them, he said, rather than accumulation of wealth, is his main motivation.

"I get a big kick out of seeing young people come here and being able to grow," he said. "I do take a lot of pride that we have 5,000 people here. You drive around out in this part of the country and you see an orange tag on a car and you know the guy works here.

"I grew up so humbly, I never had anything. I live in a nice home, I drive a good car compared to what I used to. That's about it. But I like to go in the plant and see what they're doing and pat a guy on the back and tell him I think he's doing a hell of a good job for us. And if he makes me some money, I'll share it with him."

Breidegam acknowledged that battery making is hard work, and said it's important not only to pay workers a decent wage but to provide benefits even in an era in which many employers have reduced them.

"We have tried to absorb health care costs," he said. "A worker doesn't care so much about himself, but wants his family taken care of. So we try to have a strong program for that. And I think we have a reputation for that."

Breidegam himself had a health scare when he suffered a stroke three years ago. But, he said, he worked hard at rehab and today, betrays little sign of any impairment. He has, however, finally cut back on his hours, working from about 7:30 a.m. to lunchtime. Typically, rather than cursing his own brush with infirmity, he projected his concerns onto his work force, emphasizing how important it is for people to take vacation and get away from the job from time to time.

"They work hard," he said. "Make no mistake about it, it's hard work. Me, I had a lot of tender loving care. They got it quick. I had pretty good treatment.